Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

Through this world, whether eastward or west

ward you roam,

When a cupto the smile of dear woman goes round.

Oh! remember the smile which adorns her at home.

In England the garden of beauty is kept
By a a dragon of Prudery, placed within call;
But so oft this unamiable dragon has slept,
That the garden's but carelessly watch'd after all.
Oh! they want the wild sweet-briery fence,
Which round the flowers of Erin dwells.
Which warns the touch while winning the sense,
Nor charms us least when it most repels.
Then remember, wherever your goblet is crown'd.
Through this world whether eastward or west-
ward you roam,

When a cup to the smile of dear woman goes round,
Oh! remember the smile which adorns her at

home.

n France, when the heart of a woman sets sail, On the ocean of wedlock its fortune to try, love seldom goes far in a vessel so frail, But just pilots her off, and then bids her goodbye!

While the daughters of Erin keep the boy

Ever smiling beside his faithful oar,

Through billows of woe, and beams of joy,

The same as he look'd when he left the shore. Then remember, wherever your goblet is crown'd, Through this world whether eastward or westward you roam,

When a cup to the smile of dear woman goes round,

Oh! remember the smile which adorns her at home.

EVELEEN'S BOWER.

Он!

OH! WEEP FOR THE HOUR.

AIR-Unknown. I

OH! weep for the hour,

When to Eveleen's bower,

The Lord of the Valley with false vows came.

Our claim to this air has been disputed; but they who are best acquainted with national melodies pronounce I to be Irish. It is generally known by the name of «The Iretty Girl of Derby, O!»

The Moon hid her light

From the Heavens that night,

And wept behind her clouds o'er the maiden's

shame :

The clouds past soon

From the chaste cold Moon,

And Heaven smiled again with her vestal flame; But none will see the day

When the clouds shall pass away,

Which that dark hour left upon Eveleen's fame.

The white snow lay

On the narrow path-way

Where the Lord of the Valley cross'd over the

n oor;

And many a deep print

On the white snow's tint

Shew'd the track of his footstep to Eveleen's door.

The next sun's ray

Soon melted away

Ev'ry trace on the path where the false lord came; But there's a light above,

Which alone can remove

That stain upon the snow of Eveleen's fame.

IRISH MELODIES.

LET ERIN REMEMBER THE DAYS OF OLD.

AIR-The Red Fox

LET Erin remember the days or old,
Ere her faithless sons betray'd her,
When Malachi wore the collar of gold'
Which he won from her proud invader;

Vhen her kings with standard of green unfurl'd,
Led the Red-Branch Knights 2 to danger,
re the emerald gem of the western world
Was set in the crown of a stranger.

I This brought on an encounter between Malachi (the monarch of Ireland in the 10th century) and the Danes, in which Malachi defeated two of their champions, whom he encountered successively, hand to hand, taking a collar of gold from the neck of one, and carrying off the sword of the other, as trophies of his victory.» Warner's History of Ireland, vol. i, book 9.

2 « Military orders of knights were very early estáblished in Ireland: long before the birth of Christ we find an hereditary order of chivalry in Ulster, called Zuraidhe na Craoibhe ruadh, or the Knights of the Red

On Lough Neagh's bank as the fisherman strays,

When the clear cold eve's declining,

He sees the round towers of other days
In the weave beneath him shining!

Thus shall Memory often in dreams sublime,
Catch a glimpse of the days that are over;
Thus sighing look through the waves of Time
For the long-faded glories they cover.

Branch; from their chief seat in Emania, adjoining to the Palace of the

Craoibhe ruadh, or the

Ulster kings, called Teagh na
Academy of the Red Branch;

and contiguous to which was a large hospital, founded for the sick knights and soldiers, called Bron-bheargı or the House of the Sorrowful Soldier. »

O'Halloran's Introduction, etc. part. i, chap. 5.

It was an old tradition in the time of Giraldus,, that Lough Neagh had been originally a fountain, by whose sudden overflowing the country was inundated, and a whole region, like the Atlantis of Plato, overwhelmed. He says, that fishermen, in clear weather, used to point out to strangers the tall ecclesiastical towers under water:-« Piscatores aquæ illius turres ecclesiasti cas quæ more patriæ arctæ sunt et altæ necnon et rotundæ, sub undis manifeste, sereno tempore conspiciunt et extraneis transeuntibus reique causas admirantibus frequenter ostendunt. »

Topogr. Hib. Dist. 2, c. g

« VorigeDoorgaan »